Of Cloudless Climes and Starry Skies
by bread and coal
Summary: All the wolves in Narnia are dead. Except for Susan.


Disclaimer: the characters and country belong to C.S. Lewis. if you see him, apologize for me.

* * *

The second time Susan turns seventeen, she will drink herself into a stupor and wake up vomiting. It will be her first and only hangover, and in the moment it will be all cold bathroom floors and the thick stench of vomit pooling in the rich blankets of her bed. She will stagger to the window, slim legs shaking, and the half-moon will strike something deep and old within in her, and words and thoughts will fail her utterly. She will try to howl but not quite have the balance to throw her sleek head the whole way back and let her voice rip through the confines of her walls; she will slip into a crouch and cry herself quietly back to sleep.

And in the morning, all will be well.

But none of that has happened yet because Susan has only just turned seventeen for the first time, and she is a Queen of a bright little land with a great big story; although Susan's part in this story often appears to be rather flat. Susan encourages this perception, she has found that it is ever so much easier to accept than the truth. Even for her, sometimes. Especially right here, right now, on the ledge of her bedroom window where she is trying to face the falling darkness and an empty feeling in the base of her throat.

She loves the night, throws her head back and sniffs the rising breeze. A half-moon, no stars. A good night to roam. She pauses by the window, bare toes curled in anticipation. And then she _feels _it, feels the night calling her and the hair on the back of her neck stands up straight. Her eyes gleam in the moonlight.

All the wolves in Narnia are dead.

Except for Susan.

0o0o0o0o0

Susan is wild.

Not like Lucy, who gives herself completely into laughter, into tears, into everything she does with a ferocity that flames up from the very depth of her soul. She does everything _wildly_, slapdash and hard and brilliant. Wildly.

Not like Peter, Peter who has known the battle joy, the power to take life, the laughter that swings with the blade. Peter laughs as he fights, and they call him Magnificent. And he is, he shines like a golden god and is wild in his joy at the slaughter of Evil. There is wilderness in Peter, of a very holy sort.

Edmund has no wilderness in him; it expressed itself viciously and was torn out by the root. Sometimes Susan watches him burn with passion over the smallest things and thinks that perhaps it is better this way.

Edmund fights grimly, with a sense of duty, driven by purpose. He doesn't laugh when his sword bites through the defense of one of her suitors.

She covers her face at the tournaments. They come from miles around to fight each other in hopes of winning something or other from her. Lucy swings out over the wooden walls screaming with passion, and Susan covers her face and shakes. Sometimes she is laughing, and sometimes not, but she has never failed to notice how insanely pointless all this seems to be. Men shoot their promises like arrows and think that this will lure her to their beds. They mistake Gentle for Docile; they are invariably disappointed.

The mistake Gentle for many things and it makes her laugh and laugh when she thinks of the first time Aslan called her that. Susan the Gentle. She laughs because she knows what it means to be cruel, because all of her inclination toward gentleness is a conscious effort on her part and always has been.

_Such a wicked child! _Mother would cry when she slammed one of her brothers to the ground simply because they would not raise a hand against her._ Such a vicious girl! _Susan became gentle soon after it came apparent that destruction and fury would do her no good; _ladies are always gentle, my dear,_ said mother, so Susan reigned in her anger and learned the quiet ways of compassion. Susan learned to choose sorrow and smile softly. Susan is Gentle but she is not Tame and it grows more obvious to her every single day.

Susan _behaves_ as though she is tame. She loves to create gowns in her mind and watch them form beneath the skilled hands of her seamstress, to watch the awe in the faces of her suitors as she swirls the skirts when she walks. She likes to paint her face in different subtle shades, to manipulate her beauty with cosmetics. She likes the heavy sapphires gleaming at her neck, jewels forming a collar that binds her to this world. She likes pretty things. They entertain her. Lucy scorns these things and runs laughing through the garden. Because Lucy's the wild one. Everyone says it.

Susan smiles.

Everyone's wrong.

Susan is a wolf, and wolves do not seek to be owned.

It is possible that this may change. People do that. It is possible that she will grow older and wiser and realize that there are different kinds of freedom.

Susan has never been claimed by anyone except Aslan, and she knows, deep within her, that if she chose…if she chose…she could walk away.

She is not fully His.

And she knows it.

And she _revels _in it.

0o0o0o0o0o

And for now, right here on the edge of the window, Susan is seventeen for the first time and already knows the meaning of _someday_. He can have her. Just not yet.

Susan takes one step into the empty air and hits the ground laughing. The moon catches on the pale sheen of her dress and she slides back into the shadows, the stone wall of the castle rough against her back.

She opens her mouth wide and tries to howl.


End file.
